


MCU Buffet

by freshbakedlady



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Deaf Clint Barton, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Food, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2455346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshbakedlady/pseuds/freshbakedlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collected tasty bites. Ratings and tags subject to changes and additions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fallback (Steve/Sam)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve isn't the only one with a notebook. Originally [here](http://joycesully.tumblr.com/post/99978826464/fallback).

Steve stumbled from sleeping to wakefulness with a snort. Followed by a groan when his neck informed him he had just spent a couple hours napping upright. It felt like the angle of the couch back had been permanently bent into his spine. “Nnghf,” he announced.

On the other end of the couch, Sam made no effort at all to hide his laughter. “I tried to move you,” he said without looking up from the notebook in his hands. The rest of the room had slipped into evening dark while Steve napped, but Sam glowed in the warm light of the end table’s lamp. His hand continued to move across the page. “You must have put down taproots before I got home.”

Steve flopped onto his side and squirmed the rest of the way up the couch until his head nudged Sam’s thigh. The laugh was softer that time. Sam shuffled the notebook around to rest on his other thigh and the arm of the couch. He dropped his freed hand to stroke across Steve’s hair. “How was the meeting?” Steve asked as he took full advantage of the petting. His neck crackled as he arched into the touch.

Sam hummed but didn’t answer. Steve blinked the last fog of sleep from his eyes and looked up at Sam. His face had a pinched look around the eyes and mouth. Steve tipped back a little farther to see the cover of the notebook. It was larger than his, more like a tablet than a cell phone, and mottled black and white on the outside. Bold letters read SUBJECT and on the line below, Sam had written  _July ‘14-_. There was no closing date.

"Thought notebooks were my thing," Steve said. He pulled Sam’s hand away from his head with both hands. Instead of releasing him, Steve began to stroke the valleys between bones and knead into the cramped tight muscle below the thumb. Sam sighed and the pen paused.

"When I started therapy After," he said, and Steve could always hear the capital letter that marked the loss of Riley, "I tried a lot of different things. Journaling was one that stuck. I wrote every day for almost two years in the beginning. I still fall back on it when things get tough."

The pen started up again and Steve continued to massage Sam’s other hand. Steve stayed silent as the pen strokes turned short and angry, punctuation decisive as a stab wound. The hand in his clenched unconsciously into a fist. Steve waited until the pen slowed to exhausted loops and the hand sagged flat against his chest. He asked again, “How was the meeting?”

Sam set down the pen and closed the notebook around it. “They’re cutting funding again.”

Steve nodded, because this was a surprise to neither of them. “Maybe I should do some publicity. I don’t know if you’ve heard,” and he grinned up at Sam, “but I used to have a hell of a sales pitch.”

Sam’s shoulders shook once with a silent huff of laughter. “Thought your chorus girl days were over.”

Steve shrugged. “Well, when you find something that works.” He pressed his lips to the back of Sam’s hand. “Speaking of which: the usual from China Moon?”

Sam curled his hand around Steve’s jaw for a second before letting him up off the couch. “Why mess with perfection?”


	2. Brand Loyalty (Nick/Natasha)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have more in common than ever. Originally [here](http://joycesully.tumblr.com/post/99980897694/brand-loyalty).

Nick sits up straighter on the park bench when he spots Natasha. She puts a little more sway in her hips when she sees him. They don’t need identifying marks or clothing to pick each other out—none of the red scarves or blue ties of blind dates. They know each other down to blood and bones, and clothing will always be a distant second to that. Still.

"This your idea of business casual?" Nick asks her when she clears the last stream of pedestrians separating them. He stands and curls his hands around her sweatshirt-engulfed arms. It dwarfs her. Her fingertips barely peek from the sleeves. The hem bells around her hips; Nick’s seen her in dresses shorter than this. There is a stain on the front, the exact shape and color of a drip of coffee. She flipped the hood up against the autumn breeze, but red hair escapes on either side. She wears it curled again.

Natasha shrugs, careless as the college student she’s posing as. Her backpack shifts on her shoulders with the movement. “Just trying out my options.” Her expression is cocky, all sleek eyebrows and lips that look like a smile without getting close.

"I’m sorry we didn’t leave you more." He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. The sweatshirt hood keeps her warmth close and his fingers, aching from too many nights living rough, linger in the comfort of it. Her expression stutters, like a hologram short circuiting. He reminds himself it is a privilege to see it, to be  _allowed_  to see it, even if it hurts to have her doubt him.

"Is that how we’re playing this op?" Natasha asks. She pitches her voice low, the sort of subvocalized exhale she would use in a room full of marks. He curls his fingers below her jaw, strokes his thumb across the hollow of her cheek. These months have been hard on her as well, starving her down to bare necessities, closer to the wraith he first met than she has been in years.

He looks over the top of his sunglasses at her. “Haven’t you heard? I’m retired. Out of the business.”

She tilts her head into his touch. It is acceptance and permission at once. “Must be nice.”

"Could be." He lets his fingers curl tighter for a second, asking for more, offering. He missed her while they fought their separate battles. Finding out that they are both still themselves, even with blown covers and cobbled-together wardrobes and obliterated careers, gives him more comfort than all the soft beds and hot meals he skipped.

She threads her arm through his and turns them into the flow of people. He lets her lead him to whatever safe house she has and wonders which persona chose it, which life picked out the curtains and the dishes. Her arm against his, though, is all the truth he needs.

"It’s a good look," he says as she curls the sweatshirt sleeve over her hand. She pats the sleeve of his battered leather jacket in return then gives him one of those crooked little smiles. He recognizes this one as meaning, "Better than yours," and he laughs at the joke only he has heard.


	3. Bad Manners (Bucky & Sam)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky knows what he's supposed to say and do. Routine is just another word for rules. Originally [here](http://joycesully.tumblr.com/post/100010532464/bad-manners).

When Bucky had agreed to stop running, to come back with Steve and Sam, Steve had made a lot of promises:

Bucky would be safe. (So far, as close to true as he could expect, rogue agents notwithstanding.) Bucky would get help. (Medical and mental and mechanical, more help than he could stand.) Bucky would recover. (Questionable.) Bucky would like having a normal life again. (“Routine” was gospel and SOP and buzzword in the D.C. house.)

Routine doesn’t help.

The memories of his life—his existence—under Hydra didn’t fade, for all that older memories started to fill out their ranks. They had liked routine as well. His head ached with the crowd of memories of mission after mission. Wake from cryo, wipe, receive mission briefing, get dressed and armed, carry out mission, return, get decontaminated, wipe again, back to cryo. Again and again.

Pierce loved routine more than anyone. Reports had structure. Briefings took on the shape of rituals. Disarm himself, wait, do not speak. Listen as Pierce offered things like milk or pastries or beer or comfortable chairs. Participate in a parody of polite social interactions.

So when Steve knocks on his door to ask Bucky along on his morning run, Bucky feigns sleep. The sorrow-heavy footfalls that retreat make him reconsider, but he can’t. He can’t face the way his own brain will fall into well-worn grooves if allowed to. His mouth will respond with factual reports and polite nothings to questions he barely even hears. Bucky is tired, and he can’t face any of that.

When he emerges, he thinks he is alone until he reaches the kitchen. Sam leans against the open fridge door and swallows a slug of orange juice straight from the bottle. Bucky’s mind supplies the string of rote greetings and the beaten-in impulse to lay down the knife at his ankle. He grits his teeth and resists both commands.

Sam catches sight of Bucky out of the corner of his eye. He freezes with the bottle still tipped against his lips. His eyes widen. Bucky hates seeing fear every time he does anything. Even Steve looks scared of him— _for_  him, Steve had insisted when Bucky said anything, like that was any comfort.

When Sam lowers the bottle, though, his lips curl upward. “Please don’t rat me out to Steve. He’s got this  _thing_  about it being unhygienic. Like it makes a difference to Mr. Supersoldier.”

No “good morning.” No “sleep well?” No “got any plans today?” Nothing Bucky could have expected, nothing he has to parrot back for the sake of politeness or respect or habit.

"You have terrible manners," Bucky says and holds his hand out for the bottle. If he doesn’t smile, it’s not for lack of pleasure at the discovery.

Sam smiles enough for both of them. “Man, my house got turned into a superhero bachelor pad. If there isn’t any laundry on the floor or week-old pizza on the coffee table, I’m calling it a win.” He tosses the cap to Bucky while Bucky takes a tentative, forbidden, precious sip of juice. Bucky wipes his mouth on his sleeve for good measure.


	4. Multiple Choice (OT4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky might not be ready for the essay portion of life, but he and his partners have got the multiple choice section down. Originally [here](http://joycesully.tumblr.com/post/100293904869/multiple-choice).

In the beginning, every day is a bad day, except for the ones that are worse. In the first ragged week, Steve gets used to walking in on Bucky in unexpected parts of Sam's house, stalled out or flashing back or breaking down.

"You okay?" Steve asks when he passes the bathroom door and notices Bucky standing with his hands curled tight around the rim of the sink. He doesn't get a response at first. "Buck?"

In the mirror, Bucky meets his eyes, fixating like Steve offers the only possibility of salvation. "I can't--" One hand scrapes away from the sink to gesture at Sam's line-up of products. Spray cans and pump bottles and lidded jars form a perimeter around the counter. Steve carefully doesn't mention the collection of flat irons and blow driers under the sink. Sam admitted eventually that his willingness to care for strays in need  _might_  have predated meeting Steve and Natasha.

"What do you want to do?" Bucky doesn't object when Steve steps into the room with him, off to one side so the exit isn't blocked.

Bucky touches the fingertips of his flesh hand to his left sleeve then, with the air of one taking a leap of faith, scrabbles back the grungy fabric to reveal his metal arm. It's the first time he has allowed anyone to see it since coming in from the cold.

Steve can barely make out the dull gleam of metal under the layer of grease and mud and caked blood. All of Bucky could use a good scrubbing, but the arm wins the prize. Steve's gotten a bad reaction every time he mentions bathing; he doesn't let himself think too hard about how the Soldier had been kept clean, what memories he might be jarring loose for Bucky.

Bucky steps out of Steve's way when he reaches toward the back of the sink. He pulls an orange tub of soap forward. Then he pulls a canister out from under the sink. "This one," he points to the tub, "is for skin. Mechanics use it for grease and--" Steve cuts himself off before he can start babbling about every new product he's discovered in the modern world. He points to the canister of scouring powder next. "This is for cleaning, um, that is--it's for metal and tile, and it might be--"

Bucky looks from one to the other. He seems to have tuned out the rest of the bathroom, eyes focused on the choice in front of him. He reaches out, never quite leaning toward one or the other, several times.

The smell of citrus marks his choice. Steve puts the canister back under the sink. "I think there's a nail brush somewhere, too." If Bucky can think of his arm as more human than machine, whatever its materials, Steve is happy to follow his lead.

\---

Steve might be Bucky's favorite. His preferred seat for family dinner--tonight, takeout from some secret backdoor Chinese place, the location of which Natasha guards like a state secret--is on the floor in front of the couch, with Steve's long legs boxing him in. The fact that he can tolerate, let alone crave, that kind of closeness from any of them is a minor miracle.

Still, Sam likes to think he's winning Bucky over day by day. Sam is the one who notices, while Steve and Natasha snipe at each other about movie choices, that Bucky hasn't touched any of the dozen cartons of food spread out on the coffee table. His set of chopsticks shifts between fingers, rolls between palms. Sam would very much like to solve the problem here before they turn into frustrated projectiles.

He can't just tell Bucky what to eat or hand him a carton, however. Along with rediscovering preferences, opinions, and free will, Bucky has rediscovered obstinacy. He has a broad definition of what constitutes ordering him around, and Bucky does not take orders any more. The only time it works is on bad days and, well, none of them have any desire to encourage Bucky's blank-eyed compliance.

"Hey, Bucky." Sam points with his chopsticks to two cartons containing two similar types of dumplings. "Pork or shrimp? These two bogarted both last time, so they're all for you and me tonight. Which you want?"

The chopsticks in Bucky's hand still. He takes his time, during which Sam knows damn well Steve and Natasha are both watching, despite the continued discussion of Natasha's love for such cinematic wonders as Zombiesharkbear Tsunami Terror. He chooses pork and begins to systematically demolish the contents of the carton.

Sam would be worried about him graying out on them, he's so focused on gulping down the first few. When Bucky is distracted by Natasha's explanation of zombiesharkbears, though, Steve tries to sneak a dumpling over Bucky's shoulder, and Bucky parries with his chopsticks without even looking. Steve, sitting behind Bucky, probably misses the way Bucky's mouth quirks. Sam sees it, though, and salutes Bucky with his own well-guarded carton.

\---

Natasha enjoys the way Bucky blushes when she walks out of her bathroom in only her bra and panties. Steve insists he lost the ability to be shocked by scantily clad women while on the USO circuit. Sam has a very good game face, and his skin color makes it difficult to tell, but Natasha thinks she'll break him eventually. Bucky, despite spending a significant amount of time with all four of them naked, still turns bright, beautiful red.

Natasha knows her own reasons for never blushing unintentionally past age five. That Bucky has come far enough to lose control of himself--she would find a way to make him blush every day just for that, even if it wasn't also an entertaining hobby.

She leaves him to his moment, nestled into the blankets and pillows of her bed, while she examines the contents of her closet. She plans to take vindictive pleasure in tonight's event and the discomfort of every senator and general in attendance. Nothing quite seems up to her standards, though, as she flicks hangers from one end of the rack to the other.

When she thinks she has a shortlist, Natasha holds up a dress in each hand: emerald in the left, champagne in the right. The light catches on slick fabric and subtle embellishments. "What do you think? Which one says 'haven't forgotten about you threatening to put me in jail, you're welcome for stopping those assassins'?"

Bucky scrubs at his stubble, considering the question.  _Some_  members of this team aren't expected to clean up for thank-you galas. "Dunno about all that. But--" He gestures at her open closet. "You should wear the blue."

Natasha rolls her eyes even as she tosses both dresses aside and goes to retrieve the blue one. "Why am I taking suggestions from someone wearing boxers and Steve's freakishly oversized sweater?"

Bucky's smile remains a shy thing, but it appears when Natasha holds the ocean blue gown in front of her. "Because I appreciate you in a dress more than Senator Groves ever will?"

Holding the dress up off the floor, Natasha leans across the bed to plant a smacking kiss on Bucky's forehead. "Lucky for you, the blue is a good choice."


	5. Peace, Quiet, and Other Accidental Successes (Clint & Bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two (or more) things Clint likes about crashing at Tony's place. Originally [here](http://joycesully.tumblr.com/post/100635723959/peace-quiet-and-other-accidental-successes).

Two things Clint likes about hanging around Tony's tower:

One, the communal kitchen has, like, all the food. With about forty percent of that food being coffee. The really good kind.

Two, after Clint's hearing got fucked (again) (damn it), Tony got Jarvis to project subtitles for everything on the walls and windows. Everybody on the team gets color-coded too. Natasha says it's like being at operas where they translate everything above the stage. Clint can't tell if she's annoyed about it or not.

Point is, it's a pretty good place to crash, even when you consider the routine engineering catastrophes and Thor's attempts at Midgardian cuisine and Steve's weirdo best friend.

Said weirdo best friend turns out to be camped in Clint's favorite spot. The couch in the second media room (what even, Tony?) on the shared floor has the best sight lines and really good cushions. Clint knows this, because he moved it six times before the cleaning crew finally gave up on moving it back. It is Clint's Official Movie Night Spot.

Clint has a Dagwood sandwich and a sack of fancy potato chips and a coffee pot all clutched precariously in his arms when he discovers this fact. He flips the light switch with an elbow and the ball of misery and black fabric on the couch practically falls off, it flinches so hard. Clint fumbles to turn the lights back off, muttering, "Sorry, shit, sorry," while he does.

Weirdo best friend is, of course, also Bucky Barnes. The part of Clint who will always be a little kid, whose brother sometimes managed to beg, borrow, or steal old comics to bring home, gets a fluttery, panicked feeling whenever he thinks about actually talking to _the_ Barnes. Clint hasn't actually had to talk to him at all yet, since Clint just got back and Barnes just moved in.

The fragments of Captain America comics and history lessons got rounded out by Natasha and Steve. Clint knows what a mess Barnes is, what went down along with the helicarriers, all the shit he missed. He hasn't seen it for himself, though, and he ends up freezing in the doorway, in the half dark, watching.

Barnes buries his face in the fold of his arms, knees pulled up to his chest. His breathing slows to something deliberate while Clint watches, but even the bulk of a hoodie can't hide the tension in his body. "Sorry," Clint says again. "Didn't know anybody was in here."

Barnes doesn't respond. Clint considers taking his sandwich and going elsewhere, but he's curious and caught in some kind of terrible drama gravity well. (His life.) So he sets his coffee pot and chips on the floor next to the couch, uses his sandwich as a shield, and takes a slightly less ideal seat.

Barnes jerks his head up to glare at Clint. (Clint has seen worse glares, but it's still impressive.) His shaggy hair swings out of the way long enough to show a flash of safety orange in his ear. Plugs. Explains lack of reaction, Clint supposes. At least he won't have to worry about crunching his chips too loud.

Clint gives a little wave. The jerky nod he gets in response is probably some kind of major concession on the part of Barnes. Clint hasn't got a clue what to do next and takes an awkward, too big bite of his sandwich. Barnes doesn't look away. It probably ranks as the seventh most uncomfortable meal Clint's ever had.

Old school computer-y text appears on the wall above Barnes where only Clint can see it. (Jarvis originally designated his subtitles an electric blue. Clint...hadn't responded well.) "Records indicate Sergeant Barnes has familiarity with signed English for mission purposes." Clint smiles behind his sandwich. It's like having a cheat sheet for people, if Jarvis likes you. ( _Three_ things Clint likes about the tower.)

Clint sets his sandwich down and dusts his hands off on his pant leg. "Hi. I am Clint." He's been getting better at signing. He tries to learn new signs in his down time, so his vocabulary is better. He just uses English grammar, though, and he feels like the signs come slow and clumsy. His hands are still only really good at one thing.

Barnes sits up a little taller, unfolds his arms. "James," he finger spells back. (Clint's heard the knock-down drag-out arguments between Natasha and Steve about what to call Barnes. Barnes seems to have settled the matter for himself, anyway.) He doesn't really look pleased about this conversational development, but Clint is tactless enough to take advantage.

"Sit in the dark often?" The blank stare pretty much answers the question. "Why?"

"Too much." Fingers stutter in midair for a long moment. Barnes falters his way through the signs, struggling as much as Clint does. It's sort of...nice. "Everything." Clint nods. Clint knows how it goes, having your head get scrambled, clawing your way back from that. He knows the special hell of going from being empty to being full again.

"Food okay? Smells?" Barnes shakes his head and signs yes at the same time. Clint retrieves the bag of chips. He manages not to spew chips all over when he tears open the bag. He points it at Barnes.

Barnes shakes his head. Clint shrugs and goes back to eating his sandwich, which is threatening to collapse under its load of fillings. Clint's used to the quiet.

He does notice, though, when Barnes sneaks a chip an hour later. Clint has his phone out (it's a team phone, from Tony, or Clint still wouldn't have one), but he watches Barnes eat the chip in tiny, curious bites. Neither of them has to listen to the crunching, Clint can see fine in the low light, and it's all basically not awful. Even, maybe especially, if the company is as much of a mess as Clint is.

There are at least four things Clint likes about the Tower.


	6. Trilogy (Steve/Peggy/Bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _yvesvak asked: steve/peggy/bucky with fictional character from dystopia one? Sorry I picked one kinda complicated. :)_
> 
> Originally [here](http://joycesully.tumblr.com/post/108221144194/steve-peggy-bucky-with-fictional-character-from)

Steve closed the back cover of the battered paperback. His fingers lingered, not quite able to leave it. The IV in the back of his hand tugged uncomfortably as he turn the book over in his hands. The cheap, 60s style pulp looked like it had barely survived its first owner. Boys of Brooklyn series. He’d never heard of it. If he ever got out of the hospital and to the library, he could probably look it up online.

He settled back in the bed. If he had someone like the story’s hero, Bucky, maybe these hospital stays wouldn’t be so bad. He could imagine what it would be like: Bucky would come by after school, with Steve’s assignments and a comic book and the latest school gossip. They could be more than friends—it was Steve’s fantasy, damn it, he’d wish big if he wanted to—and sneak kisses when the nurses weren’t looking.

It would be something to look forward to. Steve could do without Bucky being a rebel spy in the Hydra Wars, though. Steve didn’t want excitement badly enough to wish for that.

“Why the long face, baby?” Steve startled out of his daydream at his mother’s voice. Sarah Rogers looked like any other nurse on the floor, apart from her reputation for keeping a smile on even when everyone else had run out. She brushed a hand through Steve’s hair and kissed his forehead. “Don’t tell me the book was bad.”

Steve shook his head. “It was great.”

“I’m off early tomorrow. I’ll pick up another for you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Ma.”

She tapped a finger against the round fifty cent sticker on the cover. “We can afford it. I just wish I had noticed that shop years ago. It’s like it popped up out of nowhere.”

—-

The coughing got worse at night, so even though Steve thought he should have left the hospital yesterday, he was unsurprised when a fit rattled him out of sleep. He was still clutching at his aching ribs when a hand loomed out of the dark with a cup of water.

“Thanks,” Steve rasped out, not really thinking about the sudden appearance of another person. Someone was always moving around in hospitals at night. He forced himself just to sip the water, not gulp, until his chest and throat stopped trying to crush themselves. “Get the lights, will ya?”

The boy pushed the hood of his coat back after a moment of adjusting to the lights. The sight of him made Steve sit up sharply and grab for the book still on the nightstand. The cover art was pretty terrible—Steve could have done better—but Steve couldn’t help looking to it for confirmation. A tattered boy hoisted a futuristic rifle at the looming tentacles of an alien machine. Steve looked up again. That was Bucky Barnes in his hospital room. Exactly as Steve had imagined him for two hundred pages.

“How’d you get here?” Steve demanded. He looked at the monitors next to the bed. Was he still asleep? Hallucinating? Fevered?

Bucky frowned. “Beats me. Just knew I was supposed to be here tonight.” He looked around the room. The horrible hospital lighting washed him out almost as badly as it did Steve. Bucky’s coat had singed, ash-streaked spots. “Looks like a Hydra med bay.” His eyes narrowed at Steve. His hand reached into the coat for a gun. “You a prisoner?”

“No, I—“ Steve scrubbed at his tired eyes. Wishes didn’t just come true like that, but Bucky seemed real enough. If this was a dream or something, Steve was going to enjoy it while he could. “I’m not a prisoner. Just. Will you stay for a while?”

Bucky hooked a foot around the leg of the bedside chair and spun it around with a scraping sound. “I can do that. Don’t know where to go, anyway. Damn weird, this whole mess.”

“Tell me about it,” Steve said. So Bucky did, told Steve everything he could think of about his world. Steve tried to stay awake, hanging on Bucky’s words, but he felt himself slipping. In the end, he thought Bucky’s soft voice turned sad, the memories of his world increasingly tainted by the war he fought. Steve thought he felt a hand on his, holding tight for the same kind of comfort Steve had wished for. Maybe that too was just a dream.

—-

Steve’s mother helped him out of the car and slung his backpack across her own too-thin shoulders. “I strictly forbid you from tiring yourself out,” she warned him.

“Yes, ma’am.” Steve would try not to, anyway. He didn’t really feel well enough for that, anyway, but the restlessness of being hospitalized went a long way to offset his exhaustion.

Sarah made an unconvinced noise. “Maybe this will be incentive enough for you to stay in bed.” She set her purse and his backpack on the kitchen table. From her purse, she pulled another paperback, just as aged as the first one that Steve had carefully tucked into his backpack. “You liked the other one, so I asked the man in the shop if he had any more by the same author.”

Steve accepted the copy of book two in the Boys of Brooklyn series. Despite the series name, this one had a girl on the cover, wreathed in gun smoke. The art hadn’t gotten any better, but it was hard not to like the way she looked, hat tilted low over one eye and lips a slash of red against the dark shapes of a destroyed city behind her. He flipped the book over to read the teaser.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Sarah called to him, but Steve, headed for the couch he slept on, barely noticed. Agent Peggy Carter fought more than just the forces of Hydra to join the rebel leadership…

—-

Despite Steve’s best efforts, it took him two whole days to finish the second book. His mother caught him reading in the early hours of the morning and ordered him to sleep even as she headed out for another early shift at the hospital. Steve managed to throw off his own sleep cycle badly enough that he found himself waking up at noon to an empty house.

Or maybe not so empty, he thought when he walked into the kitchen to find a girl brewing tea and eating a slice of slightly elderly cake over the sink. Steve knew before she turned who it would be; his heart stuttered and stumbled in anticipation. He had found Bucky first, but he wanted Peggy just as much now.

“Barnes warned me this might happen,” Peggy said with a mouthful of cake in her cheek. “Most peculiar.” Steve tried to speak and only managed some flustered noises. “Hope you don’t mind my helping myself,” Peggy added.

“Does this happen to you often?”

Peggy brought her mug of tea to the table. She had used his mother’s usual mug, the one from the nursing conference with the chipped rim. It was real. It had to be. What kind of dream included chipped mugs and beautiful girls eating stale cake? Peggy looked at Steve expectantly until he collapsed into the chair.

“We suspected Hydra technology at first. But. Well.” She rolled up her sleeve to reveal the embedded communication device the rebels used. Bucky had one too, in the books, but Steve hadn’t seen his at the hospital. The screen showed a no signal type message.

“You’re not in range of anyone,” Steve interpreted.

“I don’t believe I’m in the same world we normally occupy, no. Out of range seems to be a bit of an understatement.” Peggy drummed her fingers against the mug’s sides. Her nails had been chipped down to ragged messes by whatever fighting she had seen most recently. Her lips still bore their signature color, though. Steve admitted that she, of all people, could probably cope with being dumped into a strange world with grace.

“I made Bucky stay up with me all night, but—You probably want to rest or something. You had kind of a rough time, last I. Read.” Steve flushed and ducked his head. How did you tell someone you had spent a few days reading about their life-and-death fight for freedom? How did you tell them you could listen to the details of their struggle forever?

“Oh, am I in a book for you? Interesting.” Peggy sipped her tea. “And anyway, Steve, if that’s the case, you will know that I don’t appreciate special treatment.”

Steve wanted to resist. It was one thing when sick in the hospital, but this was his own home. He should have shown consideration for a guest. He had more questions than ever, though. How she and Bucky got out of occupied Italy and its ruined countryside. What they had found out about the toxic power source for Hydra’s living weapons. He wanted to know; he wanted to be there.

So he talked to Peggy until his eyes felt heavy. She coaxed him into putting his head down on his arms at the table. “Just for a moment, Steve.” The ghost of her fingers on his cheek stayed with him until Sarah found him there a few hours later.

—-

Rebirth Second-Hand Books took up a space between a laundromat and a pizza parlor, which Steve would have previously said was just an empty alleyway. The shop existed with the same blatant disregard for reality that Bucky and Peggy had. Steve gripped the strap of his backpack in a sweaty hand and pushed the door open.

The bell chimed and a voice called, “Welcome. Let me know if I can help you. I’m just in the back room.” Steve picked his way between shelves and stacks of books in that direction. The shop smelled strongly of old paper and black pepper. Some areas had grown so overcrowded, even he had trouble navigating the narrow spaces. The shop showed every sign of having been in place for years. Steve coughed. Including the accumulation of dust.

“Excuse me?” An old propaganda poster hung on the open door of the back room, showing a pile of books on fire and some words in German. Below that, a placard read Dr. Abraham Erskine. What kind of doctor ran a used book store?

A dandelion-tufted head poked out. “Hello, yes,” the man said. “What can I do for you?”

“I had a question about a book series.” Steve swung his backpack around to fish out the two books. “Can you tell me anything about these?” He had tried rereading the books, but he hadn’t seen either Peggy or Bucky again. All he could do was think about them. All he could do was fall asleep and wake up with them on his mind.

Dr. Erskine regarded Steve over the tops of his glasses. “There is nothing special about the books.”

Steve clenched his jaw. “I know what I saw.”

Dr. Erskine tapped an ink-stained finger against Steve’s chest. “It is not the books,” he reiterated.

“Then how can I see them again? Do I only get them once? What happens when I run out of books?”

Shaking his head, Dr. Erskine nonetheless waved Steve into the back room. “They are not meant to stay here. This is not their world.” He gestured Steve to a seat almost engulfed by stacks of papers and books and twine-bundled newspapers.

Fists clenched at his sides, Steve refused to sit. “Then tell me how I can get to them.” He hadn’t wanted war, when he had wished for someone like Bucky. Now that Steve had found him and Peggy both, though, war seemed such a little thing to face, if it meant being with them again.

—-

On the shelves of a second-hand book store, Dr. Erskine made room for a third book in a series. He smoothed the slightly crimpled corners of the cover. On it, a bloody-mouthed boy curled thin hands around the straps of a shield. In the background, two figures waited for him even as the city exploded around them. With a smile, Dr. Erskine slid the book into its new spot alongside the first two.


End file.
